TV review: Another week,
another set of X Factor auditions as the judges uncover a wealth of talent in Liverpool, including 16-year-old Amelia Lily and vivacious hairdresser Marcus Collins.

Amelia Lily performs for the X Factor judges (Picture: PA)

In the show’s first Sunday edition since being under new judging management, we visited Liverpool and Birmingham as the search continued to find someone with the Christmas-single-and-maybe-an-album Factor.

Amelia May proved the stand-out and an potential finalist for Kelly Rowland ‘s girls category, with a remarkable voice for someone aged just 16.

Even head judge and designated Mr Not Nice Guy Gary Barlow was impressed, gushing: ‘Amelia, this is the reason I wanted to sit in this chair, to discover talent like this, oh my goodness, 16 years old that was incredible. That absolutely lifted the top of this arena, well done. Amazing vocals. Amelia, I am blown away, itâs a yes from me.’

Hairdresser Marcus Collins also impressed with a rendition of Stevie Wonder’s Signed, Sealed, Delivered, while Emma Wright sailed through with a well-received cover of Christina Aguilera’s Ain’t No Other Man, as Barlow declared: ‘Liverpool are delivering!’

The show’s weekly dose of schadenfreude came in the form of 52-year-old Graham Bennett, whose frankly bizarre versions of Ricky Martin’s She Bangs and Shaggy’s It Wasn’t Me earned him four nos and provoked a lot of laughing at his expense.

We are approaching the end of ‘auditions’ for the show (actually heavily-vetted, late-stage rounds) and there has been no one that blows our proverbial socks off yet. Are we heading for another Leon Jackson year?